In Karl Pillemer’s book ’30 Lessons for Living’, he interviewed a thousand elderly Americans looking for the most important lessons they had learned from decades of life experience.

He wrote:

No one – not a single person out of a thousand – said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want.

No one – not a single person – said it’s important to be as least as wealthy as the people around you, and if you have more than they do its real success.

No one – not a single person – said you should choose your work based on your desired future earning power.

What they did value was quality friendships, being part of something bigger than themselves, and spending unstructured time with their children.

The key takeaway from Karl’s book is to make sure you do something that matters – ‘Being part of something bigger than yourself.